As you may be aware, the California Ninth Circuit court of appeals in Peruta v. San Diego (2014) 742 F.3d 1144 ruled in February 2014 that Law enforcement Agencies must accept a citizen’s need for self defense as grounds for “good cause.” Per your policies, you have allowed a two week period of applications to be assessed under that ruling until the Ninth circuit issued a stay on the ruling pending the California attorney general’s motion to intervene. Recently on November 6th, 2014, the Ninth Circuit denied all motions to intervene making its February decision final. The court decision is not appealable because the original party to the action had withdrawn and without any interveners, there are no remaining parties to the action to appeal. Therefore, you must not deny applicants who rely on the permit for self defense as good cause.

The second issue I would like to bring to your attention is regarding your initial application policy. Due to the enormous increase in the number of applications last February, the Sheriff’s department changed their policies from handling all applications, to limiting only applicant who reside outside of Santa Rosa city limits. This policy seems to conflict with existing California case law which does not allow Sheriff’s Offices to require applicants to go through a local police agency prior to applying at the Sheriff’s Office. The court in Lu v. Baca decided in 2012 that “LASD must ‘consider the applications of all persons seeking a CCW permit in the first instance without requiring any applicant to first seek a CCW permit with his/her local police chief or city.’” The rational comes from Penal code section 26175 which states:

“(a) Applications shall be uniform throughout the state, upon forms to be prescribed
by the Attorney General.

(b) No licensing authority shall require any license applicant to complete any additional
application or form for a CCW, or provide any information other than that necessary to
complete the standard application form, except to clarify or interpret information provided
by the applicant on the standard application form."

Under this ruling, a Sheriff’s office must accept all applications for residents of its county.